Supporting Elementary Students in Solving Mathematical Word Problems through Integrated Classroom Interventions: An Action Research

Abstract

This study has been carried out to support elementary students in solving word problems of Mathematics. Initially, students were unable to solve the word problems, left the problems without solving, did without understanding, and lacked the basic operations and problem of converting the words problem into a mathematical expression. To address this issue, this research identifies the problems faced by students while solving the word problems, investigates the effective ways of solving word problems, eliminates problems faced by students while solving word problems in Mathematics, and constructs and implements the plan, collecting feedback and developing a re-plan as per the need. The participatory action research was carried out in which the data was collected through task analysis, interviews, and result analysis. Several integrated interventions like the use of audio-visual materials, collaboration with English teachers, vocabulary instruction, storytelling, cartoon characters, peer teaching, a second teacher, quizzes, assignments, and a daily word problem were used. Each student’s task was analyzed to identify where the students struggled to crack the verbal problems and express them in a descriptive way. The results of both the pre-test and post-test were analyzed by using simple statistical tool mean. For the triangulation of the data, interviews of students as well as fellow teachers and experts were taken. After the integrated classroom interventions, students were able to crack the word problems effectively, and their performance in the test scores also increased. This shows that students need strong language and vocabulary skills to crack the word problem. The findings suggest that teachers need to collaborate with English teachers as well as other fellow teachers to uplift the language and vocabulary skills of students using integrated classroom interventions.